Déirdre is a tenacious, passionate, and results-orientated global food and agribusiness professional with over 30 years of experience working within the FMCG, food and drink, and agribusiness sectors in operational, executive, and senior consulting roles. She has completed over US$3 billion in various consulting and transaction advisory mandates for corporate, private equity, institutional, and government clients.
As Senior Director, Déirdre leads Farrelly Mitchell’s global consulting team, who are highly experienced across multiple food and agribusiness sectors, including food processing, confectionary and bakery, flour and feed milling, and primary agriculture and commodity trading. She has led due diligence, strategy, feasibility, turnaround, and market entry and growth assignments for clients across the world.
Previously, Déirdre worked for Kraft Heinz, a global blue-chip company operating on six continents, with an unparalleled portfolio of 200 powerful and iconic brands. She spent over 20 years with the company in a variety of senior procurement, product development, food ingredients, quality and operational roles including Technical Manager, Factory Manager, EMEA Food Safety & Quality Supply Chain and Co-Pack Manager and rising to Global Food Safety & Quality Supply Chain and Co-pack Manager with direct responsibility for the approval, development, and maintenance of 5000 plus food ingredient, packaging, and beverage suppliers and 400 co-pack manufacturers, reporting directly to the Chief Global Quality Officer.
She is an exceptional leader and a highly experienced, energetic, and performance-driven executive with deep operational experience in food manufacturing, new product development, business start-up, scale ups and mergers & acquisitions across several food and agribusiness verticals including, consumer foods, infant feeding products, meat processing. poultry, dairy, eggs, pulses, fruits, vegetables, herbs and spices, rice, grains, and red meat.
Déirdre has worked alongside several food manufacturers, suppliers, retailers, and food service clients aligning and benchmarking on global food safety and or operational standards, developing, introducing, and training on new policies and or standards, leading and conducting technical and operational due diligence as part of M&As and ensuring their compliance with ESG, regulatory requirements and training of same.
